Chapter 10 – Two Weeks Later (Part Two)

Two weeks. It was a fairly long time.

Even ordinary Awakened who had just recently awakened would show noticeable growth after two weeks of systematic training.

A novice who could barely handle a weapon could face monsters quite skillfully after that much time.

However, promising prospects born with high-rank abilities or those who possessed outstanding physical specs from the start were on a completely different level.

With the backing of corporations and the state, they would achieve growth dozens of times greater than others within the same period.

Two weeks was enough for them to be deployed directly into a D-rank Gate.

That was why it was often said that the world of the Awakened was more about talent than any other field.

Very few could overcome that difference.

But Il-hyeon, with his Ability Predation, was in a league of his own.

Over the course of two weeks, he had devoured dozens of Ether Cores.

*Sshhhk!*

Il-hyeon extracted Ether from the corpses scattered throughout the house.

Pulling out cores from monsters with his bare hands, without an extractor, had now become a mundane part of his daily life.

After collecting the cores, Il-hyeon looked back.

“The government will compensate you for the damage to your house, so don’t worry… And that man, well, he may not look like much, but he’s an Awakened, so you’ll be safe with him around.”

He said, pointing to the yellow-haired man who was still groaning and leaning against the wall.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The man in the wheelchair and the woman clutching his hand bowed their heads repeatedly.

They glanced awkwardly at Il-hyeon, whose face had suddenly changed mid-encounter, and the fact that there were now two identical faces, but they tried their best not to show it.

“This bastard… he turned into my face? Ugh…”

Leaning against the entrance and letting out a pained groan, the yellow-haired man’s eyes widened in surprise upon seeing Il-hyeon, who now looked exactly like him.

He had heard that the Scavenger had a disguise ability, but hearing about it and seeing it firsthand were two different things.

“Oh, right. I forgot one thing.”

“D-Don’t come any closer!”

As Il-hyeon approached, the frightened yellow-haired man raised the sword he was holding.

“Aaargh!”

Il-hyeon effortlessly twisted the hand holding the sword, then rummaged through the man’s pockets and took out his phone.

*Crunch!*

The phone was lightly stepped on by Il-hyeon, turning into a thinly minced piece of dried filefish.

“Son of a… bitch!”

“Well then, I’ll be going. Don’t come out until you hear the police announcement. You should stop the bleeding before more monsters are drawn to you.”

After giving the young couple a few instructions, Il-hyeon opened the balcony door and jumped straight down.

The woman who watched him screamed in shock.

“Wait, this is the 13th floor—!”

*Thud!*

Il-hyeon landed on both feet, a frown on his face.

The powerful impact shattered the parking lot floor, sending fragments flying everywhere.

His legs felt a little numb, but only for a moment.

Unlike the cracked concrete, his legs were perfectly fine.

Brushing the dust off his clothes, Il-hyeon looked around.

No one had seen him.

Il-hyeon let out a long whistle, and the mice he had released on-site beforehand began to gather one by one.

“Did you find the people?”

He asked, and one of the twenty assembled mice nodded.

Despite the police’s efforts, there were still people who hadn’t managed to escape.

Il-hyeon snapped his fingers.

At that, all the mice except for the one that had nodded turned to sand and scattered on the ground.

He had made them using playground sand to ensure no traces were left behind.

“Lead the way. Let’s go.”

The mouse scurried ahead, and he followed.

As he ran, Il-hyeon tossed the three sword fragments he had hidden into the air.

The pieces reassembled in mid-air and landed securely in his hand.

Corpses lunged at him from time to time, but he maintained his speed, casually severing their necks.

“Seong-tae! Are you done over there?”

An Awakened called out to him from a distance.

He must have thought Il-hyeon was his yellow-haired colleague, but it was just Il-hyeon in disguise.

Being an Awakened, he heard the voice clearly, but he pretended not to.

He could change his face, but changing his voice was still beyond him.

As Il-hyeon continued to run, the man who had tried to talk to him looked embarrassed and took out his frustration on a monster, hacking it to pieces.

Following the mouse into the underground parking lot, Il-hyeon was taken aback.

The entire basement was filled with moving corpses.

He quickly hid behind a wall and assessed the situation.

“What the? There are this many? Don’t tell me…”

At least several hundred.

The number of monsters in the underground parking lot was far too great to be just the corpses that had come down from the Gate above.

“A double Gate?”

Il-hyeon raised an eyebrow.

Unlike other Gates that usually appeared one at a time, sometimes multiple Gates would appear at once.

In this case, they had spawned at the exact same coordinates, of the same type, just at slightly different altitudes, making them difficult to detect.

Moreover, being located underground, it seemed it hadn’t even been discovered yet.

The Awakened on site usually prioritized catching monsters trying to escape to the outside.

Therefore, places like underground parking lots, from which there was no escape, were typically left for the final cleanup phase.

“There are still living people here?”

He lowered his voice and asked the creature that had led him here.

The mouse nodded and pointed in one direction.

He saw a tightly shut warehouse door on one of the walls.

It seemed to be saying that there were people hiding inside.

‘I thought they had a developed sense of smell… Do they only react to the scent of blood?’

When they were frantically scaling the apartment building, he thought their sense of smell was highly developed.

But seeing as they couldn’t detect a person just beyond a single door, it seemed they relied mainly on sight and hearing, aside from the scent of blood.

“First, the CCTVs…”

Il-hyeon glanced at the security cameras scattered around the underground parking lot.

He raised his hand and used his ability.

All the cameras in the basement crumpled like crushed tin cans and fell to the floor with a clatter.

The corpses’ gazes darted around, drawn by the sound.

Il-hyeon emerged from behind the wall and took a lighter from his coat.

With a flick, he produced a small flame.

There was only one reason a non-smoker like him would carry a lighter.

As Il-hyeon used his ability, the tiny flame began to grow.

Expanding to the size of a human head, the flame, influenced by two of his abilities, gradually took shape.

A fluffy but genuinely hot-looking creature, a literal fire fox with a body made entirely of flames, appeared.

The summoned creature floated gracefully in the air and landed lightly on Il-hyeon’s left shoulder.

“You don’t have to kill them all. Just clear a path.”

Il-hyeon said, his immediate goal being to rescue the person.

He wasn’t going to bother collecting any more Ether anyway.

In response to his words, the fox’s fur—or rather, its flames—bristled.

“It’s best not to leave any traces, but… a little scorching should be fine.”

Until now, Il-hyeon had kept his abilities hidden as much as possible, aside from changing his face.

This was not only to avoid revealing his identity but also to leave room for a clean slate, a way to launder his identity from the Scavenger life he planned to quit soon.

The corpses that had noticed Il-hyeon’s presence began to charge at him from all directions.

Simultaneously, the flames that constituted the fox’s body flared violently.

Having finished focusing its mind, the fox’s body transformed into a massive inferno.

An intense wave of fire shot out in front of Il-hyeon.

*KABOOM!*

The blaze, powerful enough to destroy a pillar, stretched all the way to the warehouse door.

The corpses in its path were burnt to a crisp, completely incinerated, and the surrounding ones dared not approach the flames.

Just as Il-hyeon had said, a path was cleared.

Ordinary fire wouldn’t have fazed them, but this was a flame created by the powerful ability of an Awakened, one that E-rank monsters couldn’t handle.

Il-hyeon walked down the path of blazing fire.

The flames he had created could not harm him in any way.

At the end of the path, in front of the warehouse door, the flickering fire fox sat obediently, waiting for him.

When Il-hyeon held out his hand, the creature leaped up and landed on his shoulder.

“Good, you did well.”

He gently stroked under the fox’s chin for a moment, then snapped his fingers.

The fox flared up and vanished.

The mouse that had guided him similarly turned to sand and crumbled to the floor.

Il-hyeon immediately pulled on the door to open it.

But the locked door just rattled, refusing to open.

With a bit more force, he tore the entire door off its hinges.

With a loud crash, Il-hyeon entered the warehouse and quickly scanned his surroundings.

A small girl was huddled in the corner of the cramped space.

The child, who looked to be in elementary school at most, had been holding her breath with her hand clamped over her mouth when the door was violently ripped off.

Her face pale and trembling, the girl burst into tears the moment her eyes met Il-hyeon’s.

“Waaaaah…!”

Il-hyeon took her trembling little hand.

Then, with the hand not holding the sword, he lifted the child into his arms.

“You were scared, weren’t you? Let’s go home.”

***

A human figure suddenly vaulted over the apartment complex’s fence.

Two police officers guarding the area were startled and aimed their guns.

But upon realizing the figure was an Awakened carrying a child, they immediately lowered their weapons and approached.

“Are you alright?”

“For now.”

Il-hyeon, still wearing the yellow-haired man’s face, handed the child to the police officer.

Seeing the limp girl, the officer asked worriedly if something was wrong.

“The child…”

“She’s fine. Just relaxed now that the tension is gone.”

At Il-hyeon’s words, the two officers breathed a sigh of relief.

“Are there any more civilians inside who haven’t evacuated yet?”

“We can’t be certain, but… according to the resident list we have, everyone has been evacuated except for a young couple. Although the emergency broadcast worked properly, one of them is disabled, so it would have been difficult for them to get out quickly. For now, we can only hope they stay hidden safely in their home until things are under control…”

One of the well-known evacuation manuals stated that if you were at home and couldn’t evacuate in time, it was better to stay hidden inside rather than trying to force your way out.

The survival rate was much higher waiting for the monsters to be eliminated by the Awakened or for the police to come for rescue, rather than moving around aimlessly and encountering a monster while a Gate was active.

But in this case, there was no need to worry about them.

“Oh, that couple is being protected by one of my colleagues inside the apartment.”

“Really?”

The officer asked, surprised.

This wasn’t 20 years ago; it was rare these days to see an Awakened team so actively helping with civilian evacuations.

“Of course. Phew, I should get going now.”

“Aren’t you going back to the site?”

“I’m a little injured… My other colleagues will take care of the remaining monsters.”

Il-hyeon rolled up his sleeve to show a gash on his arm.

It looked like a deep cut from something sharp, so deep that the muscle was visible.

The startled police officer jumped and said.

“You should go get that treated. There’s an ambulance at the main gate right now.”

“It’s alright. They’re probably busy treating other people… I’ll just go to a nearby hospital. This is nothing for an Awakened body, and… well, I can clock out early.”

Unlike the shocked officers, Il-hyeon laughed it off lightly.

The officers still looked at the wound with concern, but since the Awakened himself said he was fine, they couldn’t exactly force him to get treatment.

All they could do was wish him a safe journey home.

“Well then, take care.”

After exchanging goodbyes, Il-hyeon turned away.

He took off his Defensive Coat, draped it over his arm, and pulled his hood down low.

As he turned a corner, out of the officers’ line of sight, the color of his gray hoodie suddenly bled into white.

His black cotton pants transformed into ripped jeans, and a scruffy beard appeared on the face beneath the hood.

But most importantly.

The gaping wound on his rolled-up sleeve had healed completely, as if it had never been injured at all.

Il-hyeon’s figure disappeared into the darkness.